Page 28 of First Date: Divorce (Wyoming Marriage Association #1)

Melody welcomed them back briskly.

“Sit down, please. I don’t want to waste any time. We’re taking on one of the big elements first thing. Trust. I’m not so na?ve that I think we can work through that thorny thicket in one session, but we can start.

“When trust has changed to its dark opposite of distrust,” Melody said when they were all seated, “it can produce a self-perpetuating cycle. Especially when one partner attempts to catch out the other in suspected misdeeds.”

Melody looked from Eric to her and back.

Catch out the other in suspected misdeeds…

Their night wanderings?

But why wait until now to bring it up? Had the counselor just heard? Had that been the purpose of Lily’s visit after their previous session?

Another question intruded.

Would she be jealous to see Eric with another woman?

The question came too fast for logic to stop it, which it should have, because Eric being with another woman sounded like he was with her in the first place. Since he wasn’t, there couldn’t be another woman.

All logical and sensible. And it not only took care of that question, it gave her an idea.

Melody spoke evenly. “One partner tries to catch out the other in a misdeed, then the other does the same. Only to discover that their own suspicions caused the behavior that makes them even more suspicious.”

Sorting through the oblique verbiage, K.D. figured the counselor, and presumably others on the Marriage-Save staff, knew or suspected that first Eric, then she slipped out of their room last night.

They might have been spotted, despite their care.

If there were cameras in the room, the staff might think Eric hadn’t known she was in the bathroom, that he’d thought she’d sneaked out, so he searched for her. Then she followed Eric, suspecting him of being up to no good.

If Melody interpreted their movements that way, it was a lot better than her suspecting the truth. Reinforcing that interpretation would keep her away from the truth.

“You can talk all you want about forgetting suspicion.” K.D. cut across Melody’s ongoing lecture about restoring trust. “If he hadn’t had that fling with Gigi, there’d be no suspicions to rekindle. That’s what caused the suspicion.”

Eric covered his mouth with his hand. He managed to look sufficiently serious above it to not arouse Melody’s suspicions.

Besides, Melody was too busy floundering. “Gigi? I don’t recall—” She touched the folder as if it could inform her about this issue by osmosis.

“Not everything is in the paperwork. A woman has to preserve some shred of pride.”

Distract, distract, distract .

“But something that serious, you should have included it—”

“There wasn’t time.”

“This just happened? When—?”

“If you hadn’t had so much pride and reserve — icy cold reserve — there wouldn’t have been a Gigi,” Eric said.

K.D. swung around to him. “How dare you!” Their eyes met. He clearly didn’t know where she’d go next, but his look said to go for it. “I am not frigid,” she finished with full outrage.

“No, no, of course not,” soothed Melody, completely sidetracked. “There is no frigid personality. There are only frigid circumstances.”

“With K.D. the circumstances are always frigid.” The remaining strain in Eric’s voice could easily pass for anger.

“You’ve made sex all about having a baby,” she threw back at him.

Yes, this was based on what they’d discussed with Pauline, but definitely adding flourishes.

“It wouldn’t be if we did it more than once every other month.”

“That’s—”

“Let’s pause there a moment,” Melody said quickly. “I don’t want to slide past this issue. It seems that having children is important to you, Eric.”

“It is.” He opened his hands and looked down at them, as if seeing a baby there.

Just that fast, K.D. could imagine a baby there, too. The tiny head carefully cradled in one large palm, the rest supported by the other hand.

She shook off the image.

“He wants children to carry on the great Larkin name. To become little clones of him. So he can live on through them. It’s all about ego gratification.”

“It’s all about family.” He looked directly at her.

“I don’t want kids in my image. I want a family in my family’s image, with the focus on being together, being good to each other, and raising good human beings.

That’s what matters. If having babies isn’t in the cards for us, I’d want to adopt. Maybe adopt and have babies ourselves.”

“Adopt and — How many kids do you want?” she asked him.

“Three, four at least.”

“Good Lord. You have it all planned out, don’t you?”

“You haven’t talked before about how many children Eric wants?” Melody’s voice brought K.D. up short.

She recovered fast. “I don’t want any, so it hasn’t mattered how many he wants.”

“Why don’t you want children?”

“Kids deserve more,” she blurted.

“More than what?”

But she was done blurting. “More than parents who don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, right down to whether they should have been born.”

“She’s terrified she’ll become her mother.”

Eric’s words felt like a spear thrust into her ribs. She sucked in oxygen at the force of the blow.

Then she realized.

He’d simply used accumulated information to further their goal of passing for an unhappy couple. He didn’t know he’d hit a bull’s-eye.

“Explain that, Eric,” Melody invited.

“She thinks she ruined her mother’s life by being born, that because of her, her mother eventually married a man that her mother doesn’t love.”

She hadn’t said that . Hadn’t even thought it that succinctly.

“That’s—”

“Just a minute, K.D.,” Melody said firmly. “Let’s pursue this. Eric, you don’t agree with what you believe K.D. feels?”

“No. I don’t. Her mom would never regret having K.D. She’d say that having a daughter has made her life. As for her marriage, Janeece isn’t K.D. She married a man K.D. wouldn’t love. They have a marriage K.D. wouldn’t want.”

K.D. drew a breath to dispute him, but the counselor held up a hand, forestalling her, then asked Eric, “What about K.D. fearing she will become her mother?”

“If she has a child, she thinks she’ll be as trapped as she thinks her mother was — either in single motherhood or—” He met K.D.’s eyes. She had to admit he was selling this really well. “—a marriage she has never been sure she wanted.”

The counselor let silence follow that. As for K.D. … she had nothing to say.

Eric’s mouth twisted into a smile that make her chest hurt.

“I suppose,” he said, “the biggest surprise is that she said yes in the first place, considering her fears.”

“You were the one who steered your relationship toward marriage?”

“Pushed, not steered.” K.D. touched the rings on her left hand.

“Yeah, I pushed,” he agreed. “You could have said no.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Melody turned to her. Sure, now the woman wanted her to talk.

“Why did you say yes, K.D.?”

The trouble in his eyes .

No, no. Because of the opportunity to advance her career.

She’d said yes despite the trouble in his eyes. His trouble wasn’t her trouble.

“His eyes,” she said at last. She sure couldn’t say any of the rest of it.

Melody nodded. “I can tell from your tone that you’re remembering all the reasons you said yes in addition to his eyes. And I think that’s a good point to stop this session.

“I want you to split up now. One to the garden, one for a massage or the hot tub. Then switch. During your time in the garden, I want each of you to write two lists. What attracted you to each other initially, then what made you want to get married. We’ll talk about those lists after lunch.”